(August 9, 2010 at 11:49 am)The Omnissiunt One Wrote:(August 9, 2010 at 5:11 am)Tiberius Wrote: I'm sure some people will go to those lengths to get food tackattack, but you aren't going to convince me that it is hygienic. I'm afraid bacteria from a dumpster, even for a few minutes, is enough to give you a bad stomach. It will be all over the packaging, all over your hands, and will eventually get to the food.
It doesn't matter if you wash your hands thoroughly each time either; eventually bacteria will make it to the food, and you'll eat it.
"Freeganism" is a reckless activity. These people would be much better off talking with the supermarkets in the first place. Believe it or not, but supermarkets don't actually want to throw away food; it decreases their profit through the loss in sales, and the cost of disposal.
Instead of rummaging through skips, freegans could just wait until the end of the working day, when shops often throw out out-of-date goods that are in perfectly good shape. That way, they could get the goods as soon as they went into the skip, or they could make an unofficial arrangement to be given out of date stuff.
That is assuming that A) shops regularly have garbage pickups to offset the inevitable biohazard, B) the bin in which things are thrown is relatively clean and C) people are kind enough to throw only food waste or a few other things, as opposed to vomit and friends.
It's an imperfect world, and we never get just what we want.
